I am interested to know how landscape architects are using social media as part of their practice. How are you using it, what are you using, and are you seeing benefits? If you do not use social media, why not?

I’ve had a design posted on one by a client, but I don’t try to push that myself; I think there is some benefit of course in having a website/portfolio to refer people to, or a blog if you think you have enough ideas to keep it updated. But social media, not so sure. That would imply that clients want to know about each other, and why would they? My contact with facebook is only because I’m trying to stay current on some distant relatives and their activities. For news or discussion topics and comments, we have bb’s.

I just have a LinkedIn account right now, since I don’t have my own practice.

I think that if anybody wanted to tap into a “fan” relationship with their clients and have them do lots of “Likes” or whatever equivalent on other mediums, they’d have to be pretty high profile and have lots of built work. Or a TV reality show.

Either that or do what the CEO of Wine Library did; he watched Twitter hashtags about wine and would give short snippets of advice and recommendations. He was information sharing all the time to total strangers, and that created buzz about his expertise. He also had a Youtube channel where he would give reviews of different wines and food pairing advice and he built up Youtube following that way. All of that extended to him selling more wine from his retail business, Wine Library.

I think it’s going to be more difficult for landscape architects because we don’t necessarily sell product and our service isn’t on a short, easily digestible timeline like a restaurant’s food or a hairstylist’s ability to make you look great.

I use facebook, we have a much underused blog and a website. We do get business through facebook recommendations and our website. We are the only design/build firm in our area that actually has images of their work online.

I post status’ regarding our projects on Facebook and also share quotes, designs we like, designs we don’t like, tips on plants and information regarding our professional experiences. For instance, my husband is a member of the Parks and Rec Commission, so I posted that. Interestingly enough, I find that LA students/grads all over the world find our facebook page so we have quite a few “likes” from Egypt, Cambodia, Thailand, etc. Pretty fun! A local architect told us that we need to get pictures taken professionally for our website because it does pay dividends.